MLB Daily: AL Rookie of the Year Frontrunner; Daniel Murphy's New Nickname?; Brandon McCarthy Tears UCL

Welcome to MLB Daily, the best daily MLB blog post you’ll read on this site today. 

Two cents on Josh Hamilton-to-Texas: The Rangers’ part of the equation is a no-brainer. If you can get Hamilton, whatever he might be in 2015 for under $7 million for, maybe three seasons, you have to do it. Texas is saddled with bad contracts in Prince Fielder, Elvis Andrus and Shin-Shoo Choo. Adding a former MVP for peanuts is worth it. As I hinted at yesterday, Hamilton — who said he was “home” — can cement himself as one of the best Rangers in club history, for whatever that is worth.

I liked what Hamilton said at his introductory press conference on Monday when asked if he “needed baseball.” Via the Morning-News:

"“Is there a politically correct answer? Dear god, let me watch what I say here. Yes, I need baseball. I love baseball. I’ve been playing baseball since I was three, but baseball is coming to an end soon and the reason I’m making changes in my life is because I want to be OK when baseball is over.”"

Hamilton said this when asked about Arte Moreno’s “disappointment” over his lack of accountability:

"“I have no clue what he’s talking about. I got to play and played hard when I was there. For me going into this season I hadn’t been the player they wanted to be. I know I hadn’t been, but I worked my butt off to be that player going into this season. They didn’t want that for some reason.”"

As for the Angels? There is zero sympathy for owner Arte Moreno and Los Angeles’ upper management. We can safely assume they knew the risks of signing Hamilton, an admitted addict, to a five-year, $125 million contract. Using a relapse as an avenue to void the remaining part of the contract given Hamilton’s precarious decline is fairly onerous, even by baseball ownership standards.

Moreno might have dug himself in further, if the MLBPA and agents take note of the Hamilton situation — especially how the team disregarded the Joint Drug Agreement’s confidentiality — and make the Angels pay more in the free agent market in the future. Either way, paying over $70 million for someone to go away (or go to a division rival) doesn’t seem like good business, but that’s me. Then again this is the team that still has to pay Albert Pujols $165 million from 2016-2021.

ROY?: Toronto made a bunch of high-profile moves in the offseason. I tend to doubt even Jays diehards got too wrapped up in the Anthony Gose-Devon Travis swap on Nov. 13, 2014 — a deal that’s worked out reasonably well for both teams over the first month of the season. The Tigers are happy with Gose, so long as he cuts down on his strikeout rate, but the Jays might have gotten a steal in Travis.

In Detroit, Travis was blocked at second base by Ian Kinsler until at the earliest 2017. Toronto swooped in and haven’t looked back. Monday night Travis his hit sixth homer of the year, crushing a Joe Kelly pitch over the Monster. He’s hitting .368/.419/.721, between Jose Reyes and Josh Donaldson. (Reyes went on the DL Monday due to a cracked rib.)

Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista could leave after 2016, so if Travis keeps it up the Jays could build around him. This isn’t to say Travis is the second coming of Roberto Alomar, but he appears to be a solid Major League second baseman with some pop in his bat.

The Red Sox won, however, on a walk-off single by Mookie Betts.

Speedy: The Mets 3-1 win over the Marlins took one hour and 58 minutes to complete. I suppose there are many jokes and or insightful comments to be made about that.

Hell of a Game: Daniel Murphy probably put together the best inning of his life in that speedy Mets-Marlins game — and he didn’t get struck down by lightning like the Bishop afterward. Murphy hit the go-ahead three-run homer off Steve Cishek in the ninth and then made an outstanding defensive play in the bottom half of the frame. More important? He possibly earned a new nickname in the process:

Baseball is always better with quality nicknames.

Scary moment: Addison Russell, one of the Cub’s highly touted prospects and concurrently the youngest player in baseball at the moment, made his debut at Wrigley Field Monday night. During the seventh inning Russell lost control of his bat and it flew into the stands, striking a fan.

According to the Chicago Tribune Russell was outwardly upset with what happened:

"“When the bat was in mid-flight, my mind was screaming ‘watch out, watch out,’ ” said Russell, who hopes to give the victim an autographed bat. “I saw the kid’s glasses fly, and it wasn’t pretty. I feel very bad.”"

The paper also reported that team chairman Tom Ricketts was one of the first people who tried to help with first aid in the stands.

What next?: Brandon McCarthy is likely out for the season after tearing his UCL. McCarthy was 3-0 in 2015, despite an ERA over five. He dropped a funny tweet after the news came out.

McCarthy’s injury could force the Dodgers to scramble to fill out their rotation with Hyun-Jin Ryu also on the DL, so start linking Cole Hamels to Chavez Ravine. The Dodgers do have the resources to make something happen, but would Andrew Friedman want to add another $20+ million player, especially with Hamels locked in through 2018?

Last week the Dodgers released veteran Freddy Garcia from Triple A Okalhoma City, so the well-traveled righty doesn’t appear to be an option to fill the void temporarily.

Fun with Early Season Stats: Bartolo Colon sports a league-best 23-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. He hasn’t walked a batter since the sixth inning of Opening Day, when he issued a two-out walk to Ryan Zimmerman. No, we don’t have a GIF to mark the occasion.

This & That: The Twins have yet to throw out a baserunner in 2015, per the Tigers broadcast last night. … The status of the remaining Orioles games this week at Camden Yards remains in flux. … The Tigers bullpen tried to throw one back against the Twins, but Joakim Soria held on in the ninth to save a 5-4 victory at Target Field.

[Inside Joke Work Or Something]